{"id":714260,"date":"2026-06-19T20:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/714260\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T20:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:55:09","slug":"saints-g-cesar-ruiz-wants-to-change-the-narrative-after-2025-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/714260\/","title":{"rendered":"Saints G Cesar Ruiz wants to &#8220;change the narrative&#8221; after 2025 criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Saints didn\u2019t make the playoffs in 2025, but their play in the second half of head coach Kellen Moore\u2019s first season in New Orleans created some positive buzz heading into the 2026 season. <\/p>\n<p>That buzz only extended to certain players, however, and right guard Cesar Ruiz was not one of them. Ruiz was a frequent target for criticism from the team\u2019s fans and General Manager Mickey Loomis said the team needs more out of a player he drafted in the first round in 2020. <\/p>\n<p>Ruiz has heard all of it and he said \u201cchallenge accepted\u201d in regard to his approach to the coming season. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nola.com\/sports\/saints\/saints-cesar-ruiz-responds-to-criticism\/article_f9682f22-64ff-4d7e-9633-6095a08aa427.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">a lot of disrespect<\/a>,\u201d Ruiz said, via Matthew Paras of NOLA.com. \u201cAnd ultimately, I\u2019m not a guy who goes into his turtle shell and blames the world for what\u2019s going on. You\u2019ve got to go figure out how to change the narrative and how to go out there and make it happen. So that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing and I\u2019ve made it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Saints drafted guard Jeremiah Wright in the fourth round this year, so a failure to change the narrative may mean someone else gets a starring role in the next Saints production. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saints didn\u2019t make the playoffs in 2025, but their play in the second half of head coach&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-714260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}